


Think of me one day

by The_SC



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28644768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_SC/pseuds/The_SC
Summary: He told me that he hoped I would remember his name if I came back to Britain, or remind of him when to France again some day.“Arthur, please think of me one day, ” he said to me before we parted.
Relationships: England/France (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This article is translated by software, there may be some grammatical errors.

The first time I saw Francis, he was sitting by the Seine feeding pigeons. He was very young, about thirty, and very beautiful, and if it were not for his chin and beard, I should have thought him a woman.  
It was the first time I went to Paris. I didn’t know the way, and I didn’t have company. I held a map, spread out and kneeling on the banks of the Seine, looking for the direction.  
As you know, we British always solve problems by ourselves. I only ask the French for help when I have to. Besides, my French is so poor that I can only speak “Bonjour” or “Je t’aime”. When I crossed the English Channel and came to this land, looking at the road signs in French, I felt like I had been kicked in the head.  
I regret coming to France. I should never have chosen Paris as my first step conquering the world.  
Just when I was at my wit’s end, I heard an English “do you need help? ” Over My Head.  
Can you imagine? A 18 years old young man who just graduated from high school, finally pluck up his courage to go out of home, take the first step to conquer the world, but the dream premature death because of lost in a unfamiliar place. This feeling is like that in a fairy tale, a monster upgrade to challenge the King’s knight, just out of the rookie village because of the death of mushroom poisoning and the end of the story early, too ridiculous.  
And the greeting, in the language of his homeland, was as gracious as the song of God that the Dead Knight had heard when he was magically raised from the dead by a passing Angel.  
I looked up gratefully, and saw a Frenchman.  
He was instantly recognisable as a Frenchman because of his androgynous beauty. I know it’s impolitely to describe a man, but I meant it in a non-derogatory way. I have seen many handsome men in Britain, but this is the first time I have seen one like him. He was not the stoic good looks of the British man, who was paralyzed and distant. His beauty is gentle, such as lavender fields in the spring breeze, ice cream melting in the summer, and so on, people can not help but want to close.  
And he was different from the other inanition person who lived through the war. He kept smiling at me, as if he wouldn’t be angry if I went up and pinched his face.  
Before coming to Paris, my friend told me that the French are arrogant frogs. They look down on the English people and don’t like to speak English, so it’s best not to ask them for help when I encounter any difficulties.  
But the Frenchman before me is not arrogant. Something tells me I can trust him.  
I went up to him in English and asked him for directions to Panthéon. He asked me to wait a moment and then raised the crumbs in his hand.  
Across the river bank, a large flock of pigeons swooped down on them, flapping their wings, and swooped down to feed. In My Field of vision of the whole sky, all the wings of pigeons, gray and white blue texture sway my eyes. He clapped his hands and got up from the bank of a river full of pigeons and said to me in a daze that he would like to take me straight. I asked him, “Aren't you feeding the pigeons?” He shook the empty bag and said there was nothing left to feed.  
Believe me, before I asked him for directions, his bag of was almost full.  
I thought he was plotting against me, but then I thought, I have no money, no charm, nothing of value. It is obvious that I am a poor student. If he’s gonna Rob Someone, he’s barking up the wrong tree.  
However, only eighteen years after the victory of the war, the whole world was in a state of disrepair. People like him who’ve been through the war, people like me who were born after the war, we’re all poor people.  
I decided to trust him for a while, not for a reason, on a hunch.  
He asked me how many times I’d been to Paris, and I said first. He says Paris is a great place. You’ll love it when you come here. I said London is also a good place. You’ll love London after you’ve been there. He smiled at me, gently, harmlessly. The Sun was shining, the sky was strangely blue, and the church bells were ringing one after another, like a wedding. “I agree.London is really a good place, ” he said with a smile. “I like London and I like England. ”  
His eyes, I noticed, were a rare pale purple, and he spoke Middle English for “London” and “England”.  
He took me to Panthéon and stopped at a candy store. He asked me to wait at the door for a moment and then went in. When he came out，his hands is with a packet of candy, heart-shaped, red，blue or any other color. He thrust the packet of into my hand, saying it was a Parisian specialty, and offered me a taste.  
I tasted one. It's sweet and sour, tastes not bad. But a stranger gave me a bag of candy, and I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. I stopped eating and tried to give the candy back to him, even though I liked it. He didn’t take it，but pushed it back to me. He was still smiling, by all the way. He said, “You can assume I'm trying to coax a child.”  
His smile made me lose my concentration. Before I realized that, I took the candy back.  
My friends remind me the French are dangerous. They are good at romance, but that’s just their trickery. To them, titillation is as common as eating and sleeping. So I have to watch out for the French and not get caught up in them.  
But I feel like I’m getting sucked in.  
I didn’t have much to say the rest of the way. He kept going on and on about the Revolution when we were passing through Place de la Concorde. We were passing through Les Invalides, and he told me about Napoléon. We passed the Shakespeare and Company, and he bought me an out of print copy of Macbeth.  
I don’t even know why an Englishman would come to France and buy a book by an English writer.  
Finally, when we reached Panthéon, he showed me the frescoes and the burial chambers of great men. He told me stories about Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Victor Hugo, so eloquently that I almost thought he's friends with these great men.  
After Panthéon, he asked me to accompany him to the nearby Notre Dame, where he said he was going on a pilgrimage. I walked in with him and saw him kneeling under the statue of Jesus, his fingers crossed, his eyes closed, very pious.  
I don’t know what he’s praying for. Is there some sin in his heart he wants to confess? Or is it a dream come true?  
He didn’t tell me. He smiled to me after the pilgrimage and asked where I wanted to go next. I Say Montmartre, I hear it overlooks all of Paris. Then he said he could take me.  
I asked him if he didn’t have to work, and he said his job was as a tour guide. I said I was a poor student and couldn’t afford him. He added that I could take him to dinner， as a reward.  
I always thought he was up to something, but I couldn’t think of anything in myself worth planning.  
He took me to the Montmartre and told me stories about Paris Commune at the Sacre Coeur. I sat with him on the stone steps overlooking Paris. It was getting dark by then, and many houses were lit up. I saw the little lights, gathering among the ivory walls and the blue-gray roofs. I saw the sycamore trees of the champs-elysees, two neat rows, and in the middle was the road paved with red leaves.  
Paris is beautiful. I love this place.  
He took me to dinner in Moulin Rouge, and I had a few drinks. The red and green lights in the bar were dim, there was a saxophone playing in the middle of the stage, and the noise was like a soft snake trying to get into my ears. There was a lot of tension, whether it was between him and me, or anyone else in this bar.  
He shook his glass and asked me my name with a smile. I burped and my mouth reeked of alcohol. I think I must have eaten too much. I Can’t help it. The food here is so good, it’s the best I’ve ever tasted, so I can’t help but eat more.  
I told him my name was Arthur, from the King Arthur, Arthur Kirkland.  
He was smiling so softly, it almost caught my heart. He said his name was Francis, the most common of the French names, Francis Bonnefoy.  
He took a sip of the wine, picked up the cherry on the rim of the glass and threw it into his mouth. I saw his lips, wet with wine or cherry juice. Then he told me that he hoped I would remember his name if I came back to Britain, or remind of him when to France again some day.  
“Arthur, please think of me one day, ” he said to me before we parted.


	2. Chapter 2

Five years later, on my second trip to Paris, I saw Francis again on the banks of the Sénas River.  
He was sitting in the same place, wearing the same clothes, feeding a bag of bread crumbs to the pigeons. I called his name, and he recognized me, and, as before, he emptied the whole bag of crumbs into the air.  
Again I saw a great flock of doves coming from the opposite bank and falling at his feet. It was just like yesterday.  
He said that I had grown tall and mature, and was no longer the child who wanted to be coaxed with sugar. Isn't it? I was twenty-three, working after college, no longer a poor student with nothing to lose.  
But he, five years later, is still about thirty years old, still very beautiful, the kind of androgynous beautiful.  
I went up to him and pinched his face. I mean, have you been eating preservatives all these years? How come there’s no sign of aging?  
He did not get angry, did not resist, let me pinch, as always gentle smile at me.  
I thought again of the warning my friend had given me, but I knew that I was already in it, and that this trip to Paris was half a job and half a search for him.  
I’m a history major, and when I graduate, I want to write a book about wartime history. I visited a number of surviving soldiers in Britain and compiled a memoir of the war from their dictations. I knew my next stop would be Moscow, or Washington, or even Beijing, but I chose Paris instead.  
France wasn’t the main battleground, and I didn’t come to Paris to collect many stories, but here I am.  
Sanskrit legend says that some encounters are predestined. I don’t know if it was an accident or not, but the first time I saw Francis, I knew his face, his smile, his demeanor. Besides, his name sounds familiar to me.  
Of course, I wasn’t going to tell him that, but what I could tell him was that I needed him to show me around Paris again, just for work.  
He asked me if I thought of him when I got back to Britain. I said no, I was busy with my studies and my work. He did not speak, but smiled unintelligibly, and waited a long time before replying. He said, “I think of you often, Arthur. ”  
He spoke casually, in a low voice, as if he were talking to himself, and I could hear him only by chance, and as if he had reached my ear and been blown away by the wind.  
I’m starting to believe that French flirting is as common as eating and sleeping.  
He took me to Panthéon and Notre Dame, and this time I brought enough money to buy him a week’s guided tour. He did not take my money, still asked me to eat with him as a reward.  
Passing by the candy store I met a few years ago, he bought me a heart-shaped candy again.  
I wanted to ask him if he was up to something. Why did he always try to baby me. Just say it. Are you here for the money or the Sex? I don’t have any money. But If you’re looking for sex, I’m willing.  
But I did not ask anything, only took out two bills and forced them into his hands. “Francis.” I say，“I have money. I can pay for the candy. I can pay for your tour also.”  
He looked at me quietly.  
I didn’t look at him. I just stared up at the sky. I heard church bells ringing in the distance, one after the other, as if they were planning a wedding for someone.  
He took me to dinner in Moulin Rouge. I had a lot to drink this time. I lay on the glass table with my arms resting on my head, like a child listening to his mother’s bedtime story. I stared at him with drunken eyes, at his hand holding his glass, at his long, silky blond hair, at his wet lips, at his smiling eyes.  
I hate to say it, but I got ta say, this guy is fucking beautiful. Five years later, I’m still Endlessly about this face.  
After dinner we returned to the stone steps of the Montmartre. I was Dizzy, and the light in sight was like a million stars circling me. I didn’t have the strength to walk, so I just leaned on his arms to sober up.  
I held onto his arm, afraid that if I wasn’t careful, he would slip away from me. I think I’ve probably been having a nervous breakdown because I’ve been talking to him with my tongue hanging out. I asked him, “Hey, Francis, do you do this in France all the time? ”  
He asked me where I got that from? I said: “Why do you say often think of me? Make me think you love me. ”  
I heard a breath. I think it was him laughing. I got angry when he laughed at me. What? You’re not gonna let me flatter myself? I bit him hard on the back of his hand. Such beautiful hands, so fine-skinned and tender, are fit to leave me a row of ugly teeth marks.  
I made faces at him and sprayed his face with alcohol, exclaiming, “this is punishment for lying to you. ”  
He put his arm around me, right on my stomach. He must be feeling really bad right now, because I’m putting all my weight on him. But he didn’t push me away, didn’t complain, just let me lean on him.  
He was looking at the city of Paris at his feet, his eyes ethereal, as if looking at a distant story. If only he could light a cigarette now, he would look more in tune with the night scene in Paris.  
Beautiful scenery, beautiful people, a perfect picture.  
I smirked at him and reached out to squeeze his face. He never said a word to me, no matter how much I hurt him. Just as I was about to destroy his face and beard, he suddenly said to me, “I’m not lying. I do think of you often, and I do love you. Arthur, I’ve loved you for years. ”  
I held his beard still, and after a long time, I pinched my face instead.  
He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled it off. He asked me funny why I was pinching myself. I said, I want to see if I’m in a dream or in reality.  
I grabbed him by the neck and gave him a tentative kiss to see how he would react.  
He still hasn’t said no to me.  
The Night in Paris embraces me, his kiss embraces me. I want to tattoo him in my blood, and together with him to the side of happiness. I want to watch the fireworks with him in full bloom, hand-held at Dawn Crystal Clear Dew.  
I tried to kiss him again, but he stopped me by strangling the back of my neck.  
He had no idea why the Sacre Coeur Church behind us had been built, he said, to appease the restless souls who had died in the Civil War. Come on!Don’t be a Killjoy. I just want you to calm my restless soul right now.  
He was around my waist to help me up, and I would not move a step, just want to stick to his body until the end of time. So he put his lips to my ear and said, “Hey Arthur, let’s go to a hotel. ”  
Come on, Hurry Up! Just Now！If you don’t want to do something to me, then I’m gonna do something to you.  
We had sex that night, and it became a relationship. I finally got what I really wanted to do when I visited Paris five years later, which was to buy a lifetime guided tour of Francis.


	3. Chapter 3

I went with Francis to Normandy to visit a surviving veteran who now lives in Manche. On the way, we took a tour of the Le Mont-saint-michel, and I accompanied Francis on a pilgrimage to the church on the hill.  
He told me about the history of the Hundred Years’ War, where more than a hundred knights had stood against the English for 24 years, and the prison that had been used as a prison for prisoners during the Revolution. Like all the stories he had told me before, these two were as real as his own. I don’t know where he got all the details. Even as a history major, I don’t know the names of the Knights, the lives of the prisoners.  
To me, the two thrilling stories he had told me were merely words I had scribbled in my textbook.  
Before leaving there, Francis got down on one knee on the sand bank, looked down toward the island and kissed the ground below. I laughed at him as a pious ascetic, and wondered if he was not a lay priest about to preach if I had not already had sex with him. He smiled, did not agree with me, but did not contradict me. He put his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. He said to me softly, “Arthur, I love this land, but I love you too. ”  
I don’t speak French, and I had to have Francis, a Frenchman, translate all the surviving veterans’ stories, which is one of the reasons I hired him as a tour guide.  
When I left Paris I had a very good talk with him, he was with me, I bought his guide fee for a lifetime. But somehow, when I got out of the station and told him the soldier's name and address, he pulled me and immediately turned back.  
When I asked him what was wrong, he didn’t give me any explanation, only that he didn’t want to see the man. But as soon as he had taken two steps, he stopped again and put his arms around me for no reason.  
He called my name, only a chant, fell in my ear, like a meaningful poem.  
And then he’s willing to go with me. It’s confusing. But soon, I stopped thinking about the episode because it had nothing to do with my work. I went to the soldier’s house, where he lived alone, and knocked on his door.  
I politely briefed the middle-aged man in the green uniform, in English, of course. Then I pulled Francis, who was hiding by the door, and asked him to translate it into French. The veteran was shocked to see Francis, who was shaking, strangling Francis’s arm with his scarred hands, crying and mumbling in French that I didn’t understand. Francis smiled at him with a gentle but distant smile and shook his head as he spoke, removing his hand.  
The man was excited and didn’t seem to believe him. He pulled Francis by the arm into the house, dragged him into his room, opened a drawer, pulled out a yellowed photograph, and pointed to one of the men in the photograph.  
I peeked at it. It was a picture the size of a palm. It must have been more than twenty years old, judging by the yellowing. There were three men in uniform, one of them this soldier, the one with the thick eyebrows in the middle a striking resemblance to me, and the other an exact likeness of Francis.  
Not the same man as when he was young and old, but about thirty years of age, pretty and androgynous, looking exactly as he does now.  
I remember seeing Francis for the first time when I was eighteen years old, five years ago, and he was exactly the same as he is now.  
I knew Francis was a wartime–born person, but I thought he was just a boy. Because he was not tormented by the intense post-traumatic stress disorder of the war like the other veterans I visited, and his personality was always gentle, I didn’t think he was consumed by the war that lasted six years. But if that’s him in the picture..  
I think I know something.  
We were eventually kicked out of our homes by the veterans, and the interview was impossible because the veterans’ emotions were so high that Francis provoked his severe war post-traumatic stress disorder. He screamed, cried hysterically, smashed up the house, beat himself up, and threw us out the door.  
Fearing for the veteran’s safety, I pounded on his door to get him to open it. Francis stopped me, took me by the hand and told me to leave the soldier alone. He said: “He will be able to calm down. Do not worry. The battlefield survivors, desire to live than anyone else. ”  
“How do you know? Have you experienced it? ” I shook off his hand and looked straight at him, terrified.  
He tried to take me back, but I took a step back.  
“Is that you in the picture? How Old Are You? ” I asked him, my voice shaking.  
He sighed, as if resigned.  
He told me to go back to the hotel, and then he bought a bottle of pesticide himself. At the hotel, he drank the whole bottle of pesticide right in front of me.  
It totally freaked me out. I did not care what, whether to explore his secrets, whether he had been lying to me. I just wanted to take him to the hospital to have his stomach pumped right away. I’m afraid if I’m too late, he’ll be poisoned.  
But he held me back and told me to watch him carefully.  
I saw him kneeling in front of the toilet, vomiting, sweating and convulsing. He had large red spots and blisters on his back, the perfect sign of pesticide poisoning. I anxiously shook his hand to pull him to see a doctor, but he refused to go, and stressed to me to observe him carefully.  
After a while, I saw the red spot on his back began to fade slowly, only half an hour, has been restored to the smooth and delicate skin. He stopped vomiting, stopped twitching, and stopped wiping the sweat from his brow.  
I watched in shock as he stood up like nothing had happened and tried to find the pesticide bottle he had just thrown away. He stopped me from going through the trash can and leaned softly against me. “Do not, ” he said. “the one is real. I Can’t die. I’ve been alive for thousands of years since I was born. ”  
Just as I was struggling to digest the concept of a “thousand years of life, ” he was throwing out an even bigger piece of information.  
Francis Bonnefoy is not a human being, but a state, born of Providence, representing the state consciousness of the FRANCE.  
Me，a normal guy, fell in love with a Country? And this country is our arch-enemy, France?  
God Save the Queen! What the hell am I crushing on?  
I had a terrible headache, and I was at a loss what to do with my swollen head. Francis asked me if I was okay? I shook my head like a rattle.  
I asked him, “are you FRANCE? ” He nodded. Then I asked him, “Are You Francis? ” And he nodded. I thought about it and asked him again, “was it FRANCE or Francis when you slept with me? ” He smiled helplessly. “what difference does it make? ”  
There’s a big difference!  
I chased England's nemesis, FRANCE, out of my room, pulled my long cherished Queen’s Medal from the secret compartment of my backpack, and pinned it to my nightgown. I wore my Union Jack underwear to prove that I was an Englishman who loved his country. I stuffed the little teddy bear I carried every day on my pillow back into my backpack because it was given to me by FRANCE. When I was done, I got dressed and lay down on the bed, under the covers.  
In the middle of the night, by insomnia for a long time I kicked open the door.  
Francis was sitting by the door, leaning against the wall, quietly smoking a cigarette. I grabbed half his cigarette, threw it to the ground and stomped it out. He didn’t know what am I doing for. Then I grabbed him by the wrist, dragged him into the room, pressed him against the wall, and kissed him passionately.  
After lying awake most of the night under the covers, I realized, shamefully, that I needed him, that I missed him, that I couldn’t live without him.  
Whether he’s the fucking FRANCE or Francis, all I know is that I love him.  
Perhaps it was my enthusiasm that frightened him. He pulled me off him when I caught my breath. He closed the Open Door and said to me, “Arthur, I am a national consciousness. ”  
I tried to kiss him again, but he dodged me. He looked at me and said, “I will not grow old, and I will not die. ”  
“So? ” I said.  
“Arthur, I’ve been here for thousands of years. Don’t You Feel Scared? ” He said in a voice never more serious.  
I held up two fingers, which in our English way means “fuck you” . I said, “I’m giving you two choices: fuck me or get out. If you choose the first one, I’m going to pretend that nothing ever happened. If you choose the second one, I want you out of my life forever. ”  
He smiled at last.


	4. Chapter 4

If you ask me, what’s it like to be in a relationship with someone who’s always beautiful and never gets Old? I’ll tell you what. It was a blast, okay? It was his face that attracted me to Francis, and now he tells me it has an unlimited shelf life, and I’ll never have to worry about him getting wrinkles and saggy skin and being a horrible old man. More importantly, this face belongs to me alone.  
God Save the Queen！ What could be better? Absolutely Not!  
I asked Francis, who else has he been in love with in a thousand years but me? Francis says no, he’s a country and doesn’t date human being. I mean, still dating me? He rubbed my head and kissed me gently.  
“Arthur, you’re different. You’re special. ”  
I asked him, is there any other national consciousness besides him? England, for example? What is the consciousness of Britain?  
He shook his head and said that he had never seen the consciousness of another country. Because this is a country’s highest level of military secrets, only the past generations of the monarch only know. Once the identity of the consciousness is revealed, there is only the endless killing and hunting of other countries waiting for him.  
“To harm me would not cause any loss of French territory, but it would humiliate her nation. Besides, I know too many secrets, ” Francis said.  
So, he’s always alone. He loves his country and his people, but he can only hide in the corner of the unknown, quietly guarding the country.  
We had this conversation at a hotel in Calvados, and Francis had promised to take me to the Omaha Beach to tell the story of Normandy’s landing more than twenty years before, so we stopped by. That night, he held me in his bed and told me stories of his thousand years.  
He spoke of Joan of Arc, a brave and loyal young woman who died tragically on the pyre. He also spoke of Louis XIV of France, the Sun Shining King. And Napoléon, a military genius who shook up the whole of Europe.  
I asked him about colonisation and the Battle of the seas. He scratched my nose and said with a smile, “You just want me to admit that England is the best，don't you? ”  
Oh, I don’t like the sound of that. Do I need you to admit it? England is the best in fact.  
We went to the Omaha Beach.  
Francis first took me to a nearby cemetery where his former comrades were said to be buried. He bought lilies and led me across the lawn, where rows of white crosses stood, to a gravestone.  
There was only the name and time of death on the tombstone. I looked at the same name of the person as me and marveled, “What a coincidence! Is this one also called Arthur? ”  
Francis nodded, then put down the lilies and said, “he named himself. He didn't have a name, and he worshipped King Arthur, so he called himself Arthur. ”  
Francis didn’t tell me much about his comrade in arms, only that he was a good man. I didn’t pursue it. After all, I was more interested in the details of the war, and my book was more about events than people.  
He took me to sit by the remains of a broken ship and talked of the terrible war.  
He talked about how the soldiers used rope ladders to waddle from their boats down to the beach and how they fell in droves as the Germans opened fire. He said he and Arthur narrowly escaped being shot into the grass, Arthur in a pile of bodies under the cover of a rifle killed many German soldiers. They captured a number of German fortification, and in the end Arthur was killed by a cannonball as a cover for his movement.  
Francis paused when he spoke of Arthur lying on the floor, his flesh and blood, barely breathing, but still using his last breath to let him go. I patted him on the back and asked, “are you okay? You Don’t have to say anything. ”  
He took me in his arms and let out a soft cry, “Arthur. ” I answered him, and he let out another cry.  
I didn’t know if he was referring to me or Arthur, the fellow soldier. Actually，I didn’t like that he was thinking about someone other than me, but the dead is the most important thing, and since that person is dead, then I don’t have to worry about that man undermining my position.  
I took out a pen and paper and wrote a few more pages before he recovered from his grief. Finally, at sunset, when the street lights were on and I had finished writing my last piece, I found him asleep with his head on my shoulder at some point.  
I slapped him in the face and yelled, “get up, Frog. ”. I slapped him awake, and he gave me a half-awake smile. I restrained myself from being attracted by his beauty, said seriously: “you should be solemnin the dead’s resting place. Sleeping here is disrespectful to them. ”  
He pinched my nose and said softly, “you’re right about everything, dear. ”  
God Save the Queen！ it’s really as common for the French to tease people as it is to eat and sleep.  
He was so attached to me that night, it was as if he was going to bury his flesh and blood inside me. He kissed my sweaty back and covered my stomach with the palms of his hands. He called my name again and again: “Arthur，Arthur..” , as if some dormant longing had awakened from this persistent call. He ejaculated inside me, stroking my dripping leg roots and pressing me down on my butterfly bone. He turned me over, scooped up my trembling thighs, and entered me again.  
“Let’s do it again, ” he said a second time, kissing my chin.  
I was so tired that night that I went straight to bed and didn’t know if he’d come in or out. When I woke up, it was the next morning, and I was lying in bed, aching all over, while he was curled up in my arms like an animal and sleeping peacefully.  
I submitted the manuscript to the publisher, and I got a lot of money. A few months later, I received a telegram from my publisher saying that my war memoirs had become a sensation in academia. Many scholars sigh that I am too true to the details, hoping to invite me to the class to talk about my writing about the war.  
When I asked Francis if he wanted to go, he said no, he couldn’t be too public. So I thought about it for a while and sent a rejection letter to the scholar who invited me.  
Francis asked me why I didn’t go. He couldn’t be seen, but I didn’t have to go into hiding with him. I replied with a smile that the book was based on his dictation, and although it was signed by me, it was actually his book, and I was not so vile as to take credit for it.  
I didn’t know it then, but this little act of mine, it protected him for years.


	5. Chapter 5

I set to work on the medieval history of England and France, dictated, of course, by Francis. Eight years later, I went with Francis to Calais, where I sent my second manuscript. I was thirty-one and could understand a little French. I heard Francis checking in at the hotel when the girl at the front desk whispered to him if I was his big brother.  
Francis had been forcibly shaved the night before, and looked like a girl in her twenties, standing next to me, like a little sister. And I grew a beard, together with the recent popular rivet leather coat, really like a tough man.  
I’m not the same 18-year-old that Francis used candy to trick or treat a dozen years ago.  
I was so depressed that I ran out to the shores of the Pas de Calais. I sat down in the grass and gazed across the white cliffs of Dover, reflecting on my life in recent years.  
It’s like I’ve been with Francis the whole time. We walked the land of Europe, went to many countries, many towns, in a continuous walk to tell and listen to those forgotten time story. Francis’s appearance would not change, forever young, always beautiful, even let me in imperceptibly ignored the passage of time. I am only an ordinary person, will grow up, will grow old, will eventually die, the god of time will not because I am with an immortal person will be partial to favor me, spoil me. I’m no different than anyone else. I can’t escape aging, I can’t escape death. God is fair, and one day I will leave Francis and this world.  
Francis chased me out and sat down beside me, looking across the channel at England. He reached out his arm for my shoulder, but I dodged him. He smiled helplessly, pinched my face and said, “what an angry child. ”  
I wasn’t mad at him until I heard him say it. I don’t know why. I told him I was going back to Britain and not to be with him. He listened to no response, even the smile has not disappeared, only gently said，“it's up to you.”  
I was even angrier, trying to pull his beard and remembering that I had shaved it off. Yesterday it occurred to me to see what he looked like without a beard, so I tied him up with a rope and shaved him myself with a razor. After shaving, I rode on him for a long time until he untied me and pressed me to the bed. He told me that unlike me, I grew my beard to make myself look braver. He didn’t want people to think he was a teenage girl.  
I squeezed his smooth jaw and breathed in, asking him, “Asshole, why don’t You Keep Me? ” He was still smiling, even though the smiling face made my head spin. He said, “then stay, Arthur. ”  
I asked him, Francis, do you love me? He said yes. And I said unto him, is this the mercy of God Unto Men? He kissed my fuzzy cheek and said, no, Arthur, you’re special.  
I actually wanted to ask him what was so special about me, more handsome? Or more good-natured?  
But forget it.  
I pinched his face and said, “if you ever leave me because I got Old and ugly, I don’t care if you’re a nation or a human being, I’ll beat you to the ground. ”  
He kissed me.  
“I won't, Arthur, I will never leave you. I will love you always. ”  
I haven’t grown a beard or shaved his chin since. His beard grew back, not like a maiden’s, but like the first time I met him.  
I also no longer try to let myself become mature, changed back to the former Sunshine Youth dress. But even though I was trying so hard to look young, I still looked older and older.  
When I first met him, I was eighteen years old and standing beside him was a young boy. Then I was twenty-three, bright and handsome, and a good match for him. Later, when I was thirty-one, I looked like one of his peers. Eventually, as I got older, I began to feel less and less worthy of him.  
When I was forty-five, I ran away from Francis.  
It started when we were buying flowers at a florist shop in the River Somme area to pay homage the heroes who had died in the First World War.The florist asked me if Francis had a crush on any of girls.  
She said that your child is so handsome, about the same age as my daughter’s, and that she would be good for a couple if he didn’t have anyone.  
I pointed to Francis and asked the woman, “does he really look like my son? ” She replied cheerfully. “he doesn’t look like much, but I can tell by your age that you’re father and son. ”  
I touched my face, which was beginning to wrinkle, and felt Speechless.  
That day, after we paid our respects to the ghosts of River Somme, I wrote the final chapter of my memoirs of the First World War, dictated by Francis. As I sealed the manuscript, washed and went to bed, Francis suddenly grabbed me from behind and pulled down my pants.  
“Artie, you’re not going to leave, are you? ” He hugged me. “you’ll always love me and won’t Leave Me, will you? ”  
We have seldom making love in recent years. Because I didn’t want to be pinned down by a much younger looking man, even though I still had a crush on Francis and wanted to have sex with him.  
It was a kind of inequality that I couldn’t do anything about. Time stood still with him but passed quickly through me. I was growing old while he was still young.  
In recent years, Francis had grown to treat me like a child, affectionately calling me Artie and buying me sweets. When I do not want to sex, he will not force me, just hold me helpless smile.  
That night I had sex with him, because of too long time did not open up and I am old, the whole process, I only pain without pleasure. But I did not say it, grit my teeth and endure the past. Francis kissed the tears from the corners of my eyes tenderly the night we first slept together in Paris.  
“Artie, don’t cry. I’ll always be here. ”  
I still loved him, but I left him. On the second morning after we slept, I ran away with everything before he woke up.


	6. Chapter 6

I went back to Britain and lived alone for a few years.  
I organized all the manuscripts and sent them to the publisher. After a series of invitations from scholars, I finally agreed to give an open history class at the university. The Title I chose was the history of the war between England and France, as I am most familiar with it, and for more than twenty years I have lived through almost a thousand years of war between England and France, as told by Francis.  
As I spoke of Joan of Arc’s weeping over the fire, “Vive la France ” i suddenly thought of Francis. I thought of the strange calm on Francis’s face when the soldier’s war post-traumatic stress disorder broke out during my visit to Manche.  
After battles and battles, how long will it take for the wounds to heal? It takes decades for a vast land to regain its former glory after being reduced to ruins by war. Although he is a country, but he is also a human being, after such a long journey, when he embraces all my capriciousness with a generous heart, when he is still gentle with me when he knows I am leaving, his heart through the vicissitudes of thousands of years, is there any moment, he wanted to tell me about the sorrow?  
I found that I couldn’t live without him more than twenty years ago when I was twenty-three, and I couldn’t live without him nearly fifty years later. To me, he’s not FRANCE, he’s just Francis.  
I lost to him. I lost to love.  
I went back to France, and once again I saw him feeding pigeons on the banks of the Sénas River. We made no further mention of the escape, as if I had gone out on a shopping trip, and he had waited for me. We got back together, packed our bags, and set off again.  
Because Francis’s face doesn’t age, we can’t stay in one place for very long, and we’re stuck on the road forever. But I don’t care. He can take me wherever he wants. I want to spend as much time with him as I can while my feet are still moving. Because I know, the time I can continue to accompany him, in fact, not long.  
For many years he called me “Artie” gently. He treated me like a child when I was old enough to have grey hair.  
He bought me candy, sweet and sour heart-shaped candy like the one he bought me when I first met him. He hugged me back and kissed my ears affectionately, even though my face was wrinkled and my skin was like dry bark.  
But then, my legs no longer agile, teeth have also can not bite candy. I can only stop the pace of travel.  
At the age of seventy, Francis accompanied me back to England and settled in Dover.  
I could no longer walk on my feet, so Francis put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me over the white cliffs to watch the sun rise and set. He sat on the lawn, facing the sea breeze and Calais on the other side, and told me stories of what had happened on that land.  
My hearing was not very good, and I spent my days in a daze, often falling asleep in the soft voice of his voice. And when I woke up, he was smiling at me, just like when I met him when I was 18.  
My neighbor, an elderly woman about my age who lived alone, envied Francis for taking such good care of me. She often said to me: “your grandson is really filial, unlike my family, even their grandmother’s name who do not remember. ”  
I did not refute, only a faint smile: “he is always good. ”  
And then I got sick, and I couldn’t even get out of the house, so I just stayed in bed. Francis sat by my bed every day, feeding me and telling me stories.  
He always had fresh stories to tell me that I had never heard before. A country’s life is too long. His thousand years of time, with my short decades of life, simply can not be heard in the end. I am an ordinary person, inevitably can only be a transient in his life. But this long road, in his endless years, how I wish to accompany him to walk a section of the road, even if only a short section.  
As I Lay Dying, Francis sat by my bed and asked me, “Artie, have you lived a happy life? ”  
I said happy, because of you, I am so happy.  
He brushed my white hair away and kissed my forehead. “thank you for spending your whole life with me. ” he said.  
I closed my eyes in his gentle gaze.


	7. Chapter 7

Francis did not know where he came from, but he had stood as a nation on the soil of France since the beginning of his consciousness.  
He knows he is the consciousness of the nation, because he can feel the voice of the people, also can feel the pain of the nation.  
He looks like a human, but not so much like a human. He will not grow old, he will not die, he will be what he was born to be, what he will be hundreds of years from now. He watched the birth of life on his land as a young man, watched the babies when they grew into children, then into adults, then into old, then be stars.  
At first, he would be curious, often to play in human towns. His people also like him. After all, he is the consciousness of the country. As a member of the country, there will always be a sense of closeness.  
But then the war broke out.  
Francis, as the nation’s ideology, was, of course, on the front lines of the war. It was not a time of tanks and planes, but a time of cold weapon, when war was won by Human wave attack, and often by men’s lives. At that time, the archers from England stood in full rows on the cliffs of the channel, and let the wind sweep across the land of France with its arrows and the greed of the invaders.  
France was defeated, and her national consciousness was captured by the English.  
Francis was tortured in the dungeons of the castle in London, and the English took delight in torturing him, often to see if he was truly immortal.  
As he lay in the land of the invaders, beaten to within an inch of his life, he heard the cries of the people on the other side. They weep for defeat, for the ruin of their families, for the imminent destruction of their country.  
He also heard the laughter of the invaders.  
“This national ideology is so easy to find that any ordinary Frenchman can ask which one it is. And it is also easy to grasp, killing the soldiers at the front and catching the left one with no effort. ”  
“Well, do we have an ideology in our country? France does, and by rights we should have an ideology in England. ”  
“Yes, I have heard that our king has kept him well hidden, and no one knows his name or what he looks like. Unlike this, he is always in public. He is a target, isn’t he silly? ”  
Francis remained in the dungeon for a long time, until a young girl rescued him.  
It was a maiden named Jeanne, from Orleans. She sneaked into London, into the king’s castle, and rescued him from a dungeon.  
She got down on one knee in front of Francis, the point of her sword thrust into the ground beneath his feet, and her steely gaze was as sharp as a sword’s. “I will die for France, ” said the maiden.  
But the maiden died on the English pyre.  
For the reason she saved the day for the war, and she rescued Francis from the king’s dungeons.  
It was then that Francis realized that he loved these people, but that he should stay out of their lives.  
For many years, Francis lived incognito. He walked the land of France as an ordinary man, and did not stay long in any place. Sometimes he lingered in a village. A hundred Years later, he returned to the old place. When the children who had been begging for sweets on his lap had grown up and were buried in the dust, he reacquainted himself as a new traveller with the descendants of those children, and Be Friends again.  
The national consciousness guards its people, but only in a quiet way.  
Sometimes when war broke out, he joined the army as an ordinary soldier. He along with other people who love the motherland together to resist the aggression of aggressors, together with shedding bloods and lives. When the war was over, he would leave without a sound, like a ghost on the prowl, before the military honors were awarded.  
It’s just that every time there’s a serious post-traumatic stress disorder left. The scorched earth of war needs to be restored, and so does the nation’s consciousness. Fortunately, Francis wouldn't die, and he was able to recover slowly enough.  
By World War II, Paris had fallen, France had surrendered, and when the German army marched up the Champs Elysées with guns, Francis，the consciousness of France， began to weaken.  
He had a clear sense of his own impending demise, and he could hear the cries of the French people.  
Like the cries he heard hundreds of years ago during the Anglo-French war, his people cried for their homes, for their country to be destroyed.  
Francis was at the with DeGaule, watching the British officers leaving. Just as the plane was about to take off, Francis, unable to stop herself from French people's crying, shouted to DeGaule, “Run! ”  
And then there was DeGaule's escaping, and then there was Free France. Francis was imprisoned by Pétain and sentenced to high treason.  
“FRANCE betrayed his Vichy France, so he should stay in prison and be punished, ” Pétain said in his own words.  
Of course, Pétain was always a Frenchman, he did not advertise Francis's identity to the Germans, except to claim that Francis was a criminal who had deceived the general.  
At that time, Francis saw an Englishman.  
He was sent to prison for theft, claiming he grew up in a den of thieves and had a knack for stealing, and that getting caught was a fluke. He didn’t have a name, just a code, but he called himself Arthur, because he was very fond of the ancient English hero King Arthur. He wanted to be as great as King Arthur.  
He used a piece of wire to pick the lock of the cell and tried to escape while the guards were changing shifts. As Francis lay dying on the ground, he came up to him, picked up Francis’s body, and asked him, “Little Pretty, are you dead? Do you want me to take you out or not? I don’t see a way for you to live here either. ”  
Francis followed him with gratitude and said, “take me away, take me to the battlefield. ”  
Arthur’s original plan was to return to Britain. He said he had been trafficked to France as a child. Now that France had fallen, he planned to return to Britain as soon as possible. Francis wanted to go to war, and he kept his word and took him.Yet，Arthur joined the army by mistake.  
Arthur was a happy-go-lucky man who saw his military service as an act of fate, a perfect opportunity for God to give him something to do. He was a good shot and an open-minded man, and although he was a rogue, he quickly became one with other regular soldiers, it also brought much joy to Francis, who was weak and lifeless at the time because of the German occupation of France.  
He used to lurk in the grass, holding a gun, “when I get back to Britain, ” he said to Francis as he took aim, “I’m going to drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of meat. I would read all of Shakespeare’s books and eat the heart shaped candy given to me as a child by a candy selling lady next door. I want to fall in love and live happily ever after. ”  
Arthur had many wishes, all of which were to return to Britain after the war had been won. He wanted to live out his life with a bang, make his mark on history, and have his name known to all.  
But in the end, Arthur died a violent death, leaving only a cold grave.  
He died for Francis. That day, they landed with troops from the Omaha Beach at Normandy, opening a second front for the Allies in Europe. Arthur followed the scouts to the front of the army, killing many Germans, and finally died from a falling shell.  
Francis remembered, on his deathbed, he laughed with him at the cowards of the war correspondents who hid in the rear. While he was shooting at the Germans, he told Francis to hide behind him so he wouldn’t get shot. He joked that Francis was a pale, sickly mess of a man who would have died a thousand times over if it wasn’t for him running off to war knowing he was weak.  
He had a sharp tongue and a sharp tongue, but in his own way he did his best to protect Francis, a fellow soldier. It was Francis who had been given the order to cover for his comrades to move and clean up that day, and it was Arthur who had taken the liberty of taking Francis’s place, and was killed by gunfire.  
Even at the end, when he was barely alive, he was still trying to point a gun at the Germans and tell Francis to go.  
Arthur wanted his name to be remembered. When he was alive, he would always tell Francis that, in case he died and Francis was still alive and back home, back in France, or passing through Britain one day, he wished he could remember his name. If there’s one person who remembers him, his life is worth living.  
“Francis, think of me one day, ” Arthur had said to Francis more than once.  
He didn’t have to die. Arthur’s original plan was to return to Britain and live out his life in peace in a house in the country. It was Francis who asked him to take him to war, and it was Francis who changed the course of his life.  
In the end, it was Arthur who took Francis’s place and died instead.  
There were so many of these great heroes in those brutal war years. If they’re lucky enough to make it back alive, they’re gonna make it back home. But if they unfortunately die, can only be a handful of foreign land covered by the loess, a lonely soul without the Lord.  
Like Arthur.


	8. Chapter 8

Francis was in Dover, watching Arthur Sleep, engulfed in flames. When the spark burned out, he found Arthur’s ashes in the dust.  
He gathered the Ashes, put them in a small bag, took his pack and started again.  
He retraced all the paths he had taken with Arthur over the decades, and scattered Arthur’s ashes on the French part of the land under his feet.  
It was Arthur’s dying wish. He wanted to be with Francis forever, so he asked him to spread his ashes on the ground in France.  
He was an Englishman, but he devoted his whole life to FRANCE.  
As he retraced his steps, Francis dropped to his knees, cupped the ashes in the bag in his hands, kissed them, and then carefully, slowly, inch by inch, sprinkled them into the soil. The whole thing was solemn, and Francis, who did it all, was like a pious ascetic.  
He felt a part of Arthur slowly melt into his flesh, a sense of pilgrimage satisfaction that only Arthur could bring him.  
After all this, Francis went to the Omaha Beach again, sat at the tomb of previous Arthur, and smoked a cigarette all night against the salty sea breeze.  
Actually, he knew from the beginning that this love with Arthur would only last a few decades, compared with his long endless years, but a flash in the pan, meteor across. But he also knew that after his life with Arthur, he would inevitably think of him on every lonely night that lay ahead, starting today.  
Francis did not, in principle, fall in love with a human being, because he was a nation, and a human being was just a short flowering hibiscus, too ephemerall. The reason why be with Arthur, is that he wanted to round up the past life Arthur could not meet the regret.  
For Francis, of all the humans he had ever met, the only one who could give him a sense of belonging was particularly short lived, like a trail of burnt ash at the end of a cigarette. When the breeze blew，then he disappeared.  
  
End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note1：Arthur was born in 1946，the second year after World War II, died in 2016，at the age of 70.  
> Note2：Previous Arthur died in 1944，the year of Normandy landed.


End file.
